Theology writing can sometimes be boring, conformist, and placeless. What would theology sound like if we let our distinct “accents” come through, even if ever so slightly?

I heard an interview with Jens Kruger on the radio the other day. Kruger is a Swiss-born banjoist who was talking about the years he spent with Bill Monroe, the Father of American bluegrass. Monroe cautioned Kruger against simply mimicking other bluegrass players. He said “You’re not from Kentucky. You’re from Europe. You have your own influences. I want to hear that.” It got me thinking. What would my writing look like if I didn’t just try to ape the style of theologians from another place (or seemingly no place in particular) but wrote theology in an Alabama accent, so to speak. Even if it’s slight.

Shouldn’t a philosopher from Kentucky be shaped just a little by the rolling bluegrass of his native state? Or won’t an ethicist from East Tennessee have at least a tinge of the hills and hollers come through? Or shouldn’t the camp meetings and collards of Alabama be detectable just a little in my own writings, at least to those who have an ear for it?

Style in theology writing, as a friend recently remarked to me, is especially tricky. The subject matter requires a certain reverence and circumspection and is often best served by directness and clarity. Still, academic theology, like all human discourse, must be indigenized somewhere, addressing a particular people and a particular set of needs and emerging, of course, from a particular writer. I honestly can’t think of many clear exemplars of what I have in mind, where a uniquely emplaced style comes through. Maybe Stanley Hauerwas? Maybe minority and female theologians are our best examples? I certainly don’t have it figured out in my own writings. It’s mostly a wish and an aspiration.

What do you think? Who is doing this well?